(25 Dec 2021) Filipino Catholics were relieved to be able to return to churches on Christmas on Saturday as the country celebrated the birth of Jesus Christ.
In Manila, limited numbers of worshippers were allowed to attend Mass and they all had to wear face masks and maintain social distancing.
The service was held as hundreds of thousands of people in country, Asia's largest Roman Catholic nation, were marking Christmas without homes, adequate food and water, electricity and cellphone connections after a powerful typhoon left at least 375 people dead last week and devastated mostly central island provinces.
More than 371,000 houses were either damaged or blown away in the storm.
Before Typhoon Rai hit on December 16, millions of people were trooping back to shopping malls, public parks and churches after an alarming spike in COVID-19 infections in September eased considerably in recent weeks with more vaccinations and lighter quarantine restrictions keeping omicron cases in the country to just three so far.
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